No Regrets
by Calie1
Summary: About five years after the movie. Leaving him had been her only choice.


Notes: This would take place about five years after the movie. This is my first Push fic. Please review.

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"Nick?"

It had been so long since he'd heard that soft innocent voice. He dropped his shirt on the bathroom floor and stepped out of the doorway. As he moved away the light from the bathroom fell on her face and he was once again faced with the big blue eyes that had dug their claws into his heart a long time ago. "Hey kid." She was already sitting up when he sat on the side of the bed. Her stick thin arms wrapped around his neck and Nick responded by slinging an arm loosely around her waist.

"I wasn't sure if I'd ever get away, but I knew you'd try." Cassie buried her face in his neck and didn't even fight the tears. "I couldn't even See. I didn't even know if you were coming."

"I know, it will wear off." One of the Divisions most recent pet projects was an inhibitor. While under the drug any person would lose their abilities.

"I can't take it. It's like someone taking your ability to see or talk or hear."

"I know." He didn't really. He was lucky enough that he hadn't been a victim of the drug yet. He couldn't imagine being rendered weak by it. Gently he rested his hands on her waist and pulled her back.

"What about the agents from Division? What if Division finds out where we are, they'll know you came after me."

"Don't worry about that." Nick said gently and brushed her matted hair from her face.

"But they're after you, those agents who took me-."

"Won't be talking to anyone ever again." Shining eyes searched his face. Some part of him suspected she didn't quite believe that he would have killed. But they fought back, and Nick wasn't going to leave without her. Eventually, she just nodded and dropped it.

"How long was I gone?" Cassie wiped at her eyes and sat back onto the bed cross legged. The days and nights blurred together. For a good part of the time she had been sedated.

"A week. Billy called me when you disappeared, and here I am." Nick frowned and leaned back onto his arm. "This isn't working Cassie. I know you wanted to try this on your own, but it's not working. Your power alone makes you target enough. You know when to run, but you can't protect yourself when they find you. They'll lock you up just as easily as they did your mother." She looked away from him but he caught her jaw in his hand and forced her to look at him. "And it's too late for separating so that we aren't used against one another. They know they can do it."

"I was fine for a year." She pulled her face from his grip and scooted backwards on the bed to put some distance between them.

"And now you're not. When your visions don't keep you out of trouble at least I can be there to keep you safe and right now it's not safe." She wouldn't look at him as he spoke and for some reason it began to reawaken that old anger he'd felt when she first told him she was leaving. It had been a slap in the face. "You were wrong, now let's move on from it."

"I was right." She mumbled to herself, refusing still to meet his eyes. Every time she looked at him that old vision would continue to replay in her mind over and over again. It never changed, which was why she never went back too him.

"You were in Division's hands!" He stood up and glared down at her in anger. "You practically served yourself to them on a platter! Do you want your independence that badly that you'd put yourself in danger!?"

"It isn't like that!" Cassie cried, her eyes filling with tears again at his misplaced anger.

"Then explain it to me! I've bent over backwards for you, and what do you do in return. You just pick up and leave!" She was crying again, and it should have bothered him, he should have apologized for yelling, but he wasn't sorry. Nick wanted her to hurt for the trouble she'd put him through. Life without her had been miserable. When she looked away from him again, her face hardening despite the tears falling down her pail cheek, he lunged forward and grabbed her by her arms.

Cassie gasped at the rough grip on her arms and looked up in shock at the man looming over her. Nick never got angry with her. Upset sure, disappointed pretty often, but never angry. "Nick, I…"

"Even knowing that we aren't safer apart you still think your right." She didn't say anything, but she pushed those pointy shoulders back in defiance, telling him exactly what she thought. Nick fought the urge to tighten his grip on her thin arms and instead pushed her away.

Cassie caught herself as she fell backwards. He had turned away from her, rubbing his hand over his hair. "I had to." He turned around and faced her again, his face tense and angry. She'd never been scared of him. He'd always seemed like a big goofy kid to her. He had never really treated her like an adult though and she suspected that she really didn't know all of him. Now that his anger was directed at her she didn't like it. When it came down to it he was big and intimidating, especially standing in front of her without a shirt on.

"What did you see?" It finally dawned on him that even after she still insisted she'd made the right decision that she knew something he didn't "Tell me."

She was tired and broken, it wasn't in her ability to lie to him, but she couldn't tell him. "I can't."

"You kept something from me." Her eyes looked away from his stare, but then quickly found them again. When she nodded it took everything in his ability not to shake her, yell at her, walk out the door and leave her in her own misery. "Why?"

"I can't." Cassie's voice broke at her denial.

"Why?!"

She jumped as he yelled and fought against the urge to back away. "I can't." She cried. He stepped forward and before she could move away he grabbed her by her arms and hauled her up so that she was kneeling on the mattress in front of him almost at eye level.

"You were almost gone. If they would have gotten you into Division headquarters I don't know when I would have gotten you out. You probably would have been just as fucked up as your mother was." She winced at his choice of working, but he didn't care. "If it was that important for you to put your life in danger I deserve to know. I told you when you left that I respected your decision, that I wouldn't let it come between us. But this will."

It was happening anyway. No matter what she did she was going to lose him. "Please." But he wasn't letting her go, and she knew by his anger that she was standing on thin ice with him. Nick never got angry at her, never. "I just don't want to lose you."

Her words chipped away at the anger, but it wasn't enough. "So you leave, put yourself in danger?"

"You were going to leave me." Cassie sobbed. "Not physically, you wouldn't do that. But the Nick that I know, you weren't going to be that guy anymore, he was gone. You were so distant after."

"After what?" He shook his head and tried to recall something happening, but everything up to the point were she left had been fine.

"It hadn't happened yet. I had to stop it. When I Saw you pushing me away, it was ten times worse then being physically apart."

"What was it?"

"Don't." Cassie shook her head. "Don't make me tell you."

For a moment he almost let her convince him. But Cassie had always been trying to protect him, save him from her visions. The control was always out of his hands and in hers. Nick was tired of being led around on an invisible leash and never knowing where he was going. "What did you see?"

She looked up at him for one breathless second and then squeezed her eyes shut. "I Saw…I Saw myself as I was a year ago. I Saw you. A bed." Cassie winced as the visions came back in full Technicolor. She didn't have a photographic memory, but when it came to her visions, they remained with her forever, clear as day. "And then you were pulling away from me, physically and mentally. You couldn't look at me, wouldn't even touch me. You hated yourself. You said I had been too young. Couldn't stand the fact that you did that to me. And no matter how much I told you otherwise it didn't make a difference." Cassie hung her head, still refusing to open her eyes. "I tried changing it. I did Nick. But it never changed. So I left. I figured if I left it wouldn't happen." Slowly she opened her eyes and looked up. His face was unreadable, and she wondered if he really understood what she had just told him.

"You're not saying what I think you are." She bit her lip and seemed reluctant to confirm his suspicions. Nick thought he was going to be sick.

"They started after the last time you saw Kira. I saw you and Kira. She told you that she would never be the most important thing in your life. Then I would see glimpes everyday after that." She shut her eyes and pulled what she Saw back to the surface. "My face, the tattoo on your back, my hands on your shoulders, your hand on my thigh…" He released her and she lowered herself back to the bed as he turned away from her and dropped into a chair with his head in his hands. "I'm sorry."

Nick groaned and squeezed his eyes closed, doing his best to wipe the images she described from his head. How many times had stopped himself from touching her, from glancing down at the long legs that extended out of her skirt. She'd curl up next to him when they waited at the airport. When they traveled by air or bus she'd put her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. At some point it stopped being sweet and it made him cringe.

She needed her ability, badly. Not knowing what was going to happen was horrible. "Nick." She scooted off the bed and walked towards him slowly. He didn't respond or even look up at her when she stopped in front of him. "Please." Still nothing. She dropped to her knees in front of him and peered up, wishing she could see his eyes through his hands. "I knew what it would do to you if you knew. I tried to stop it."

Here she was apologizing and it should have been him. It hadn't been her fault. Slowly, he dropped his hands and found blue eyes staring up at him. "This wasn't far ahead in the future?" She shook her head. "How did I not…" It didn't matter. What mattered was fixing things. "I won't leave you." Her blue eyes widened and he could see the hopefulness in her face, but the tears were still in her eyes. "Cassie…" He reached out and cradled her face in his palm. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you go so easily."

"I didn't mind being alone before I met you. But this past year…" She shook her head and blinked, allowing fresh tears to escape her eyes. "I was miserable. I just couldn't take it. I don't usually like this emotional shit, but I couldn't take it. I don't want to feel like that again."

"You don't have to go anywhere. I told you I wasn't letting you go again." She gave him a tearful smile before she launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Nick hesitantly wrapped his arms around her waist, her vision still on his mind. But it had been that fearfulness that she had been worried about. Instead he wrapped his arms tight around her waist and pulled her up off the floor into his lap. She came willingly and curled her legs on his lap. Nick buried his face in her neck and held her against him. "Kira was right." Her arms tightened. "She wanted to give it another try and I thought about it." Nick sighed a lifted his head up. "But I couldn't. She said that she couldn't deal with always being second to you." Her head slowly lifted, her blond locks brushing against his cheek. When her eyes met his he sighed. "She was right."

"Nick." Slowly, she sat back and let her hands slide away from his neck and settled on his bare chest. "You don't have to say anything; I don't want you to-."

"Just stop. I haven't handled this right, and I didn't in your vision either. We're not just friends." He could hear her shudder as she inhaled. Nick threaded his fingers through her hair and cradled the back of her head. "Would you have left if I wouldn't have pulled away from you in the future you saw?"

"It doesn't matter. That was only a year ago. I'm not that much older." The hand that had been resting loosely on her back wrapped around her waist.

"That doesn't answer my question. If it still would have happened would you have left?" Her fingers curled on her chest, nails scrapping lightly against his skin as she drew her hands into a fist.

"No." She whispered. "I just didn't want you to regret me."

"When was the last time you saw me regret it?" Nick slid his hand out of her hair and down her slim neck, wrapping his hand around it as he went and finally settled over her collarbone, running his thumb over the sharp line of the bone sticking out.

Cassie grabbed his shoulders to steady herself when his hand slid under the back of her shirt and settled on the bare skin. "Before they found me."

"Have you tried again?"

"It's all a blur." His hand slid around to the back of her neck and pulled her closer. "Nick." His hand tightened and she felt an odd sensation begin to grow deep in her womb. Something that she wasn't familiar with, but that she did somewhat recognize. She leaned her body in closer to his, wanting the contact.

"Try again." Her eyes slid shut and Nick waited. When she frowned and shook her head he released her neck and grabbed the leg she wasn't sitting on and pulled it to the side of his lap. He slid is hand under the thigh of the other leg and pulled it out from underneath her body. As her body settled down on him she gasped and he tightened his hold on her legs in case she tried to pull away. "Try again." Nails dug into his shoulders and when she rocked against him he held still, not allowing himself to grab her hips and thrust up and against her.

"I can't think." She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to block out the feel of him between her legs. "Don't do this to me. Don't do this and then…"

"I want you to see." He slid his hands up her legs and under her shirt until he came to the top of her skirt. He stopped there, wrapping his hands around her waist, and brushing the exposed skin of her stomach with his thumbs.

"Nick, I-."

_He was over her again, one hand gripping her thigh and the other supporting his weight. She could see her face, eyes squeezed shut, head thrown back. He moved slowly against her._

_Then she was in the shower, pressed against blue tile with Nick's body, legs wrapped around his waist._

_Curtains were cracked, light shining on her bare back as she slept. A masculine hand slid up and down her spine and he leaned into her ear. "I love you."_

"Hey." Her eyes had been open now for a few moments, just staring at him. He pulled one hand out from under her shirt and rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "Are you okay?"

"Kiss me." His eyes met her for a moment then his hand was on her neck and his arm wrapping around her waist, pulling her against him and pressing his lips to hers.


End file.
